One Fear Becoming True

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An hour ago at one in the morning my door bell rang. I was in bed. I eventually answered on the video screen. She told me that her bedroom ceiling had just collapsed and didn’t I hear the noise. I didn’t. This has been one of my worst fears. And accounts for a lot of checking. Fortunately there were no injuries but I saw the picture on her phone of damage.

I said that nothing appeared wrong in my flat but I would turn off my water. Later I shifted the washing machine from the corner of my kitchen and noticed a very damp floor board.

Above the washing machine there is a boiler that was newly fitted in late May. Running along the floor behind the washing machine is water pipe and waste pipe from the sink and connections to the boiler and washing machine.

The engineer who installed the boiler also replumbed the washing machine.

The position of the washing machine meant that I could not observe the damp patch.

So the water is off. And there is no substantial observable leak.

I own my flat. The woman below rents hers. The four flats have common building insurance. Two of them owner occupied and two rented out.

I cannot sleep at the moment as I am going through all the options. Need to check pipe work, building costs, how we jointly approach the insurance company and so forth. Any advice welcomed.

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This suggests that you get easily upset and stressed when issues like this happen.

There is no need though to panic. You had a concern and, as it happens, it appears to have occurred.

But there is nothing magical about this.

I was concerned about getting burgled when we lived in a block of flats. And we did suffer an attempted burglary, but the mortise deadlocks on the front door stopped the thieves gaining access by kicking the door in - though the door had to be replaced.

So stop worrying - these things happen, as PB says, that's life.

As you say, you need to liaise and talk to the insurers and your fellows in the block. But no need to make a crisis out of a drama - as Boris Becker famously said, "nobody died".

If you all pull together and support each other you should get through this just fine.